Read Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) for Free Online Page B

foreseen, for the chair collapsed under him as if he had sat on a top-hat, and he reclined comfortably on the floor, where he remained for the rest of the time.
    ‘I think I’ll stop where I am,’ he said, when they offered him a wooden stool to sit on, ‘for you see I’m not used to chairs.’ So they let him stop where he was.
    One by one the Lords of the Council began to arrive; they looked curiously at the ambassadors but said nothing. When they were all arrived the Princess said to the dwarf:
    ‘Now if you will state your message we will listen.’
    So the dwarf snarled in a bad-tempered voice:
    ‘I shan’t tell you — you aren’t the commander-in-chief of the army, are you?’
    ‘No, but I am the Queen of the Western World.’
    ‘Oh! you’re the Queen of the Western World, are you? Well, you won’t be Queen of the Western World long, if you don’t mind your P’s and Q’s. The king Merrymineral sent me to say that if you don’t marry him and make him king, he’ll kill the lot of you and make himself king in spite of you — so there; and I’m to wait for an answer.’
    After consulting the Council for a moment the Princess said:
    ‘Of course I shan’t marry him — how could he be so ridiculous as to think so?’
    The dwarf laughed.
    ‘That’s your answer, is it?’ he said.
    ‘I thought so. I say, Gog, have you written it down?’
    But Gog had gone to sleep. So the dwarf pricked him with the end of his lance.
    ‘I say, Gog,’ he said, ‘she’s given her answer and you haven’t written it down, and I’ve forgotten it already. Just say it over again, Queen, will you? and not too fast, or Gog here will never get it down.’ The giant now drew from his pocket a very soiled and crumpled half-sheet of a copy-book and began to write from the Princess’s dictation.
    ‘Of course I should not do anything so—’ Here he stopped.
    ‘How do you spell “ridiculous”?’ he said.
    ‘With two “k’s,” of course,’ said the dwarf; ‘even I know that, though I can’t write.’
    When he had finished he handed it to the Princess:
    ‘Just sign your name, will you?’
    The Princess signed her name, but she could not help seeing that the writing was very bad and the spelling was awful.
    ‘Why didn’t they send some one who could write better? Why! that “r” is more like a “k” than an “r”.’
    But the giant shook his head mournfully.
    ‘They hadn’t got any one else in the army who could write except Merrymineral, and he was afraid to come.’
    ‘But weren’t you afraid to come?’ she said.
    The giant shook his mace round so violently that it grazed the helmet of the dwarf, and cut his crest of roses off.
    ‘Whom am I to be afraid of?’ he growled. ‘I could kill your whole army single-handed’; and he laughed loud and long.
    But just at this moment the Owl, that had been sitting on the floor behind the Princess’s chair, flew up on to her shoulder, and no sooner did the giant see the Owl than he jumped up from the floor, where you remember he was sitting, and he was in such a hurry that he knocked a hole in the plaster of the ceiling with his head.
    ‘Come, I say, you know,’ he said, ‘I can fight anything in reason — but I’m not going to tackle that, you know; besides, we’re ambassadors, and you can’t hurt us. I’m going’; and he rushed out of the room as fast as he could, and the dwarf followed him as fast as he could make his horse gallop, and they never stopped till they reached the camp of Merrymineral. For they were very frightened, you see.
    After they had gone the Princess again dismissed the Councillors, and when they had gone, she said to Lord Licec and the Prince, who by the bye still remained:
    ‘Now let us finish our dessert’ — for the ambassadors had come in right in the middle of it.
    After a moment the Princess said:
    ‘How absurd of him to think I would marry him — why, he’s old enough to be my great-grandfather.’ But suddenly she